Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, kickstarter, red: a cyberpunk fairytale, sean stephens

A Fable for the Techno-Age. Red: A Cyberpunk Fairytale

Published Sun, 24 Nov 2013 16:00:24 -0600

by Sean Stephens

When it comes to politics, freedom is a word that's seen a lot of mileage.

Tune into cable news, and you'll see a politician attempt to justify their policy decisions by saying their intent is to protect our freedoms from enemies who wish to do us harm.

So in order to combat this impeding tyranny, the US government established a secret domestic surveillance grid, bailed billion dollar financial intuitions with taxpayer money, and fought a 12 year and counting War on Terror…all in the name of securing our freedom.

It's all sounds very complex. I remember a much simpler time in high school, when freedom came in the form of drawing in my sketchbook in during lunchtime.

Art was an escape from to day-to-routine and lunchtime was the only time during school hours I was allowed to talk to freely with my friends. We all had different classes, so it was fun to reconnect during school hours and retreat into laughter and creativity. It was also there, where I met my creative partner and friend Daniel Velez.

Daniel was and is a hardcore pop culture enthusiast. I was introduced to a ton of books, movies and comics that I had neglected to view during my childhood. Vast knowledge was uploaded into my mind and really complimented the way I thought about creating projects. Genre wise, Cyberpunk was the rallying point for us. It combined all of the elements that we enjoyed which include action, mystery, and our mutual fascination with emerging technology. With it's cautionary themes they are essentially the fairytales of our modern times.

Eventually, we realized that we shared an entrepreneurial spirit and our creative partnership strengthened all the way into art college and beyond.

In 2008, the recession hit and things took an interesting turn. Not only financially, but Daniel and I ended up looking into important issues ranging from economic collapse to erosion of liberties and the realization that perhaps neither party of government actually has our best interest in mind.

Everything clicked after that. We desired personal and creative freedom in order to explore these ideas. Thankfully, crowdsource funding websites like Kickstarter allows for creatives to raise money to make their dreams a reality.

Our project Red: A Cyberpunk Fairytale was forged from our minds into the comic that you see before you right now….and we are happy that we are free to make that a reality.

Red: A Cyberpunk Fairytale, is a sci-fi version of Little Red Riding Hood written, and illustrated by Daniel Velez in collaboration with his creative partner Sean Stephens. A Kickstarter campaign is currently underway with Bleeding Cool Exclusive! After 50 backers we will unlock a video tour of our studio and will explaining our behind the scenes art process. To see more artwork and to donate please visit: